Yes, I really like Taleb's books because they are about the gap between theory and practice -- and in particular, how to make bets and take action to discover that gap.
His later books go into this too: how academics rewrite history in favor of the ideas they created, but "tinkerers" create history.
I believe he uses the example of the Wright brothers. Were they physicists? No, they were engineers and tinkerers. And what is amazing is that people still argue about the physics of how planes fly!!! Practice often precedes theory.
Whether there's a similar phenomenon in computing is an interesting question. Computing is sort of special because the finished product, a program, is probably the closest thing to a pure idea that you will find in engineering (as opposed to a plane or a telescope). It is created almost entirely in the human mind.
On the one hand, you could say that what you learn in school is idealized and gives academics too much credit. To use a recent example, what was the contribution of Phil Katz vs. academic research in compression? That would make for an interesting essay I would love to read.
What about BitTorrent, or BitCoin? I believe plenty of academics were trying to create systems like BitTorrent, and publishing papers about them, but Bram Cohen said he pulled a bunch of magic numbers out of his butt and dealt with router quirks, and made it work. But certainly he also used computer science.
The word “algorithm” is often claimed as the central concept of computer science [35]
“Algorithm”, however, leaves out large amounts of the discipline of programming:
components, patterns, protocols, languages, data structures [76].
There is equal acceptance of high and low culture: Visual Basic and Haskell
are equally of interest, as there is no reason to applaud the one and disparage
the other
Postmodern programming rejects overarching grand narratives.
As a result, it favours descriptive reasoning rather than prescriptive. Rather
than working top down from a theory towards practice, postmodern programming
theories are built up, following practice.
His later books go into this too: how academics rewrite history in favor of the ideas they created, but "tinkerers" create history.
I believe he uses the example of the Wright brothers. Were they physicists? No, they were engineers and tinkerers. And what is amazing is that people still argue about the physics of how planes fly!!! Practice often precedes theory.
Whether there's a similar phenomenon in computing is an interesting question. Computing is sort of special because the finished product, a program, is probably the closest thing to a pure idea that you will find in engineering (as opposed to a plane or a telescope). It is created almost entirely in the human mind.
On the one hand, you could say that what you learn in school is idealized and gives academics too much credit. To use a recent example, what was the contribution of Phil Katz vs. academic research in compression? That would make for an interesting essay I would love to read.
What about BitTorrent, or BitCoin? I believe plenty of academics were trying to create systems like BitTorrent, and publishing papers about them, but Bram Cohen said he pulled a bunch of magic numbers out of his butt and dealt with router quirks, and made it work. But certainly he also used computer science.
I like this essay, "Notes on postmodern programming": https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=16064138633971247...
Some excerpts:
The word “algorithm” is often claimed as the central concept of computer science [35] “Algorithm”, however, leaves out large amounts of the discipline of programming: components, patterns, protocols, languages, data structures [76].
There is equal acceptance of high and low culture: Visual Basic and Haskell are equally of interest, as there is no reason to applaud the one and disparage the other
Postmodern programming rejects overarching grand narratives. As a result, it favours descriptive reasoning rather than prescriptive. Rather than working top down from a theory towards practice, postmodern programming theories are built up, following practice.